A passive optical network (PON) is one system for providing network access over “the last mile.” The PON is a point to multi-point network comprised of an optical line terminal (OLT) at the central office, an optical distribution network (ODN), and a plurality of optical network terminals (ONTs) at the customer premises. In some PON systems, such as Gigabit PON (GPON) systems, downstream data is broadcasted at about 2.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) while upstream data is transmitted at about 1.25 Gbps. However, the bandwidth capability of the PON systems is expected to increase as the demands for services increase. To meet the increased demand in services, the OLT logic devices need to be reconfigured to transmit the data frames at higher bandwidths, for example at about 10 Gbps. The logic devices at the ONTs also need to be reconfigured to process the received data at higher bandwidths, which can be computationally expensive for some processes, such as forward error correction (FEC).
A plurality of existing communication links or channels in the PON system can be combined using wavelength division multiplexing to establish a channel with higher bandwidth without reconfiguring the logic devices or significantly increasing the data processing time. For example, four different wavelength channels with equal bandwidths at about 2.5 Gbps can be combined to establish a single communication channel at about 10 Gbps. However using wavelength division multiplexing to establish the single channel can be limited by the number of available wavelength channels in the PON systems.